Director, Data Engineering & AI

West Monroe; Los Angeles, California (CA, MO); Hybrid; USD 200,000 - 250,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, vision insurance

401(k) with company match

Unlimited flexible time off

Ten paid holidays

Ten weeks paid parental leave

Hybrid work schedule

Job summary

West Monroe in Los Angeles is seeking a Director, Data Engineering & AI to lead the Technology Data Engineering practice, shaping offerings and growth.

You will guide client engagements, architect enterprise data solutions for AI, and drive business development while managing cross-functional teams.

This hybrid role requires 30–50% travel and collaboration across cloud platforms and leading data initiatives.

Qualifications

• 10+ years in team-based, client-facing consulting services.
• Deep expertise in data platform technologies like Databricks, GCP, or Snowflake.
• Experience designing enterprise data platforms for AI/ML at scale.
• Knowledge of real-time data pipelines, feature stores, and data governance.
• Willingness to travel 30–50% and hybrid office presence.

Responsibilities

• Lead multi-disciplinary teams to deliver data/analytics solutions.
• Translate client objectives into actionable data engineering projects.
• Shape engagements with pricing estimates and risk assessments.
• Drive business development and client relationships.
• Ensure value realization and high-quality deliverables.

Skills

Data engineering leadership

AI architecture

Business development

Stakeholder management

Cloud data platforms

Tools

Databricks

Snowflake

GCP

AWS

Azure

Job description

Are you ready to make an impact?

West Monroe has an opportunity for a strategic Director, Data Engineering & AI to join our Technology practice.This leader will structure, lead, support, drive, and grow West Monroe’s Technology Data Engineering practice and associated offerings in collaboration with other leaders across the company.

What you will do in this role:

Business Development:

• Drive opportunity origination at existing clients, qualify leads and collaborate on pursuits for new work and build deep relationships
• Shape client engagements focused on AI-enabled data modernization, including data platform transformation, data quality, governance, and AI infrastructure readiness
• Collaborate with industry and multidisciplinary teams to identify sales opportunities
• Initiate and lead business development meetings with prospective clients
• Understand client needs and requirements and help turn those goals into concrete engagements and detailed proposals that highlight quantifiable value creation
• Create work plans, pricing estimates, and risk assessments for prospects
• Attend networking events and actively build and leverage a professional network and affiliate network in the local community

Client Delivery:

• Lead teams serving clients across industries while demonstrating executive presence with high level client counterparts.
• Manage and influence multi-disciplinary teams to translate client business objectives into data and analytics solutions; collaborate with data engineering, industry, and product teams to deliver impactful results for our clients
• Provide quality assurance and conduct frequent touch bases with client executives to ensure value is realized and understood from our engagements
• Architect enterprise data solutions that support AI use cases through high-quality, governed, discoverable, and interoperable data pipelines
• Guide clients in implementing data engineering best practices for AI applications, including feature engineering, vectorized data architectures, metadata management, and real-time data processing
• Understand and support the underlying business processes and technologies being used within an organization to be able to make recommendations on how to achieve long-term scalability, reduce operational cost, or better support business processes
• Ensure proper management of project economics including: project budgets, invoicing, and the collection process

Practice Development:

• Collaborate with national and local leadership within Data Engineering & Analytics practice and across West Monroe industry and functional practices, to develop and deliver multi-disciplinary, data-driven offerings
• Develop and expand West Monroe’s capabilities around AI-enabled data engineering, intelligent data platforms, and cloud-native AI architectures
• Build accelerators, frameworks, and reusable assets that support AI data readiness, unstructured data processing, semantic layers, and vector database integration
• Drive internal innovation around emerging AI engineering patterns including retrieval augmented generation (RAG), agentic workflows, streaming data architectures, and AI orchestration frameworks
• Mentor teams on modern AI data engineering concepts including scalable pipeline design, data products, feature stores, and AI platform operationalization
• Stay current on evolving technologies across AI infrastructure, data engineering, cloud ecosystems, and intelligent data applications

What you will bring:

• 10+ years participating in team-based, client-facing business and technology consulting services
• Requisite depth in one or more key data platform technologies – Databricks, GCP, and / or Snowflake
• Entrepreneurial spirit and willingness to innovate on new and emerging solutions
• Experience designing and delivering modern data platforms that support AI, machine learning, and Generative AI use cases at enterprise scale
• Strong understanding of AI-oriented data architecture concepts including real-time data pipelines, feature engineering, vector databases, semantic search, and unstructured data processing
• Experience implementing scalable data engineering solutions within Databricks, Snowflake, AWS, Azure, and/or GCP environments to support AI and analytics workloads
• Familiarity with MLOps, LLMOps, data observability, and governance frameworks required for enterprise AI deployment and operationalization
• Demonstrated success within one or more of West Monroe’s core industries including Healthcare (payer/provider, life sciences), Utilities, Insurance, Banking, and/or Private Equity
• A commitment to inclusion and diversity, and openness to new ideas and perspectives
• Ability to Travel, as required based on client and practice demands (30 to 50%)
• Hybrid role, expectation to go into your local West Monroe office 1 to 2 days a week

Based on pay transparency guidelines, a reasonable expectation for the salary range for this role is listed below. Information on our competitive total rewards package, including our bonus structure and benefits is here. Individual salaries are determined by evaluating a variety of factors including geography, experience, skills, education, and internal equity. Employees in proximity of our Seattle, Washington DC, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco offices will have a geographic premium applied to this salary scale.

• Employees (and their families) are covered by medical, dental, vision, and basic life insurance.
• Employees are able to enroll in our company’s 401k plan, purchase shares from our employee stock ownership program and be eligible to receive annual bonuses.
• Employees will also receive unlimited flexible time off and ten paid holidays throughout the calendar year.
• Eligibility for ten weeks of paid parental leave will also be available upon hire date.

National

$200,000—$250,000 USD

Other consultancies talk at you.

At West Monroe, we work with you.

We’re a global business and technology consulting firm passionate about creating measurable value for our clients, delivering real-world solutions.

The combination of business and technology is not new, but how we bring them together is unique. We’re fluent in both. We know that technology alone is not the answer, but how we apply it is. We rely on data to constantly adapt and solve new challenges. Actions that work today with outcomes that generate value for years to come.

At West Monroe, we zero in on the heart of the opportunity, getting to results faster and preparing people for what’s next.

You’ll feel the difference in how we work. We show up personally. We’re right there in the room with you, co-creating through the challenges. With West Monroe, collaboration isn’t a lofty promise, but a daily action. We work together with you to turn vision into clear action with lasting impact.

West Monroe is an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer
We believe in treating each employee and applicant for employment fairly and with dignity. We base our employment decisions on merit, experience, and potential, without regard to race, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, age, religion, disability, veteran status, or any other characteristic prohibited by federal, state or local law. To learn more about diversity, equity and inclusion at West Monroe, visit www.westmonroe.com/inclusion. If you require a reasonable accommodation to participate in our recruiting process, please inquire by sending an email to [e-mail].

Please review our current policy regarding use of generative artificial intelligence during the application process.

If you are based in California, we encourage you to read West Monroe’s Notice at Collection for California residents, provided pursuant to the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and linked here.